


Rain On Me Your Sweetness

by deandratb



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 12:25:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10786710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: A new administration...a new chance at something more. Pure fluff with sequel potential.“Why did he suddenly feel like he was pulled right back to being that kid in the Mess who couldn’t even carry food up stairs without dropping it, because he thought his coworker was pretty?”





	Rain On Me Your Sweetness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broken_hearted_bard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_hearted_bard/gifts).



> Set just a smidge post-series. A belated birthday gift by request.

“Sam!” 

The folders Ainsley had been carrying went flying out of her hands when she ran into him, both figuratively and literally, in the bustling White House hallway. 

He didn’t drop anything he was carrying, but his gaping mouth made it obvious that he was just as surprised to see her.

Transition was such chaos, it was no wonder it hadn’t happened yet, Ainsley thought. It turned out that coming into an administration once it was established and running relatively smoothly was vastly different from being a part of it from the ground up. 

He should have expected this, Sam thought ruefully. He’d heard that she was going to be White House Counsel, but hadn’t needed to think about that too much, with all the positions that still needed staffing and the minutia of the transition that Josh had kept piling on his desk. 

Every time he looked at his growing phone sheet, he remembered the jokes they’d crack in the Bartlet Administration about Josh not really having a job to do. He kind of wanted to grab past-Sam by the shoulders and give him a good shake. 

“Ainsley, hi,” he stammered after what felt like an eternity, trying not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. God, what had it been, four years? Why did he suddenly feel like he was pulled right back to being that kid in the Mess who couldn’t even carry food up stairs without dropping it, because he thought his coworker was pretty?

Shaking his head, Sam crouched down to help gather up her folders. “Sorry about this, I wasn’t even looking, I have a meeting with Carter and he--”

His hand bumped hers and he cut himself off, drawing back. “Doesn’t matter. Here you go.”

“It was my fault,” Ainsley argued, taking the files as they stood back up. “I know better than to read and walk. Or, well--I don’t, obviously.”

He was already angling himself for a retreat, and she wasn’t sure why. 

“Well anyhow, I’m sorry for bumping into you.” 

“It’s really alright,” she tries to tell him, but his phone buzzes and he makes an apologetic face. 

“I have to go.”

“Nice to see you again,” she offers faintly, watching him walk away.

****

How was it that time had barely touched her, Sam wondered. 

He was only half-listening as Lou argued with Carter, giving his mind more time to wander--it wasn’t as though Lou really needed his help when it came to posturing. 

Instead, he was thinking of Ainsley, the way she’d been striding through the halls like she owned them, no longer the insurgent who was afraid to meet the Commander in Chief.

She seemed so much more confident--if no more coordinated, he thought with a smirk...but just as gorgeous. 

Only Ainsley Hayes could crouch in the middle of a West Wing hallway, gathering her paperwork, and look completely radiant. 

In the years since she’d left the Counsel’s office and he’d left the White house, he’d thought about her often. She was one of his few regrets: never making a move, being too worried about a scandal or even just looking like an idiot. He’d always had to wonder whether she would have said yes, if only he’d asked.

The last thing he needed now was to remember all of that, to relive it...to have it shoved in his face in the old halls where she glowed like new and he just felt tired.

After the meeting, he was grabbing lunch in the Mess when his attention was diverted from the new drought report by that light drawl.

"Hello again.” 

“Hey.” He grinned at the size of her salad as she joined him. “Famished?”

“It’s lunchtime,” she answered, as though that answered that.

Ainsley studied him while she ate. It was strange to see how little Sam had changed, when the White House was full of it these days. He was still one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen, objectively speaking, who never acted like it. She still had the urge to pick a fight with him on every issue, just to watch his mind work. 

“I’d heard you were taking the position as Deputy,” Ainsley told him as they finished eating. “How is it going so far?”

“Well, so far, it’s…madness,” he admitted with a chuckle. She noted with interest that the last few years had sharpened him...he’d lost that sweet, heart-on-his-sleeve look that had been so difficult to resist. He had the polish and steel he would need to be the new Josh, Ainsley thought, but had to give up parts of the old Sam to get there. 

She hadn’t kept in touch after she left the Counsel’s office, and now she was left in the dark as to what exactly had happened to change him so much. She wondered if it was a bad breakup, or the congressional debacle she’d watched from afar. It couldn’t have been the White House itself, because here he was, back again.

“That sounds about right,” she replied.

“Yeah. There are perks, though.” His face brightened. “Want to see my office?”

“Even better,” she countered with a laugh. “Want to see mine? No bats at all so far.”

“Wish I could,” Sam told her as he set his napkin aside, “but I’ve got to be on the Hill by one. With the way President Santos likes to chart his own course, though, I’m sure I’ll be seeing it soon enough.” 

With their new working relationship in the administration, Ainsley knew that he couldn’t avoid her entirely. But something compelled her to rush ahead before he could disappear for the second time.

“How about we meet for a drink later and catch up? I’d love to hear all about what I missed when I left. Say, tonight at nine?”

Somehow Sam was certain that socializing with her after hours was a bad idea, but now that he was Deputy COS, the last thing he needed was to antagonize the new White House Counsel before they’d even gotten their administration off the ground. 

Blinking, he couldn’t find a way to politely refuse, so he didn’t. “Sure. Sounds good. The Gibson?”

Ainsley grinned, her smile still pure Southern sunshine. “Great. See you then, Sam.”

****

When he arrived at the bar, it took him a minute to find her, even though he knew she would have gotten there early. That was Ainsley for you, punctual to a fault, obsessed with her codes of honor and truth and star-spangled patriotism. But despite sitting across a table from her earlier that same day, he barely recognized her at The Gibson.

Her long hair was pinned back, framing her face, which had pinked up prettily to contrast her slick red lips. Suddenly Sam wasn’t sure this was a friendly drink after all. What was it she’d said when he agreed to meet? He tried to think back, unable to focus. Whatever it was, it hadn’t prepared him for the silver top that laced across her bare back and showed off creamy skin dipping down to a sweeping black skirt. 

She was chatting with the bartender as he approached, her head tipped back in laughter, making the smooth line of her neck catch the muted light. He admired her ease with strangers, Democrat or Republican; he’d always been a little awkward with them. 

“Sam,” she greeted him with delight, eyes sparkling as he approached. “You made it.”

“Of course I did.” He took a seat at the bar next to her. “It’s busy in the Oval, but we’re not quite at the working-past-eight stage of the chaos yet.”

“Well, I’m glad.” 

The bartender nodded his way, eyes returning to Ainsley afterwards. Sam couldn’t blame him. “What’ll you have?”

“Tom Collins.”

By the time the bartender brought his drink, Ainsley had coaxed out the story of why he had left the Bartlet administration. It was easier than he would’ve expected to admit that the loss of an unwinnable campaign soured him on politics. It was harder to answer her understandable follow-up question.

“Then why did you come back?”

“Josh needed me. President Santos intrigues me. And I just...I missed it.”

He folded his napkin in half, then tucked it into his pocket--an old habit he stopped noticing years ago. "What about you? Why not stay at the...where were you again, the Coolidge Institute?”

“Hoover.”

“Right.” He smiled. “So, why did you come back?”

“Well, first there’s Josh’s winning personality,” Ainsley drawled, making him laugh. 

“But seriously...” She thought about it. “I feel like I did more good working under President Bartlet than I have in the years since. Bipartisanship is where real change happens--where government can actually work for the people.”

He was nodding along, drawn in by her sincerity. There were many things Ainsley Hayes was not, but she always said only what she meant. That was one of his favorite things about her.

“I want to work for the people,” she finished simply. A firm nod punctuated her words. “So I’m here to help the President do that.”

He couldn’t help the slow smile that spread over his face. He was simply enchanted by her strange intensity, always had been. Dazzled.

Sam told her about a few of his strangest encounters after leaving the White House, and she returned the favor with tales of being accosted for her traitorous career choices whenever she went back to her hometown.

“This is fun. Why did we never do this during the Bartlet administration?” Ainsley asked him, sipping her second sparkling pink cocktail.

“Why do you think?” 

“Well, it wouldn’t have been appropriate,” she began the list easily, as though she had it already prepared. “I was new, and wanted respect, not whispers about fraternization. We had nothing in common.

“And also?” She smiled at him. “You never asked me.”

He enjoyed the way her words went soft around the edges with just that hint of the South, he always had. Despite her years in Washington, that had yet to change, and it made him grin back at her in return.

“This time I didn’t have to,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, I’m all about seizing the day now,” Ainsley said with a laugh. “I just thought it would be nice to catch up.”

“Even though we still work together, and have nothing in common.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m a senior counselor,” she replied, growing serious again. “We have history in common. And after Leo...every day matters.”

“Yeah.” Sam blinked back the stinging in his eyes for a second.

“Anyhow, it was just an evening out,” Ainsley beamed at him and finished her drink. “Nothing to worry about here.”

****

Walking amiably next to each other on the way back to her place, they got caught up in a dissection of the latest Supreme Court decision, Roper v. Delaware. 

“It’s clearly a civil rights violation. All you have to do is look at the prior case law, Madison v. Harwick for one.”

“Come on, Sam. You of all people can’t honestly be saying that the Constitution guarantees--”

“Well, clearly I am saying it or you wouldn’t be trying to argue against it!” Sam shook his head. Some things never changed. He was glad this one hadn’t. Ainsley was still his best opponent.

“This is me.” She stopped in front of an unobtrusive brownstone and smiled at him. “We’ll have to continue this during office hours. Maybe we could grab lunch tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“I’m really glad we’re going to be working together, Sam." Impulsively, Ainsley leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, before shooting him another smile. “Thanks for walking me home.” 

“Goodnight,” he called out as she headed up the stairs, not sure what had just happened. 

Dazed, Sam began the walk back toward his own apartment. His cheek tingled where she’d kissed it. Catching a goofy smile on his own face, he thought back to their evening at the bar, swapping stories and avoiding shop talk. 

Had he just gone on a date with Ainsley Hayes?

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Skin" by Collective Soul.


End file.
